The web marks the one year anniversary of the abduction of two French journalists in Afghanistan

The web marks the one year anniversary of the abduction of two French journalists in Afghanistan. Tunisian web users discuss the demonstrations that have hit the country. And a housewife’s Twitter thread is to be adapted for the small screen.

FRENCH HOSTAGES IN AFGHANISTAN

365 days in captivity. The support committee for Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier has released this video online to mark the one year anniversary of the abduction in Afghanistan of the two journalists and their three guides.

The support committee has been extremely active. A petition carrying over 80 000 signatures was delivered to the French government last week. It is still possible to sign this petition on the Internet. Objective: continue to mobilize public opinion in the hope they will soon be freed.

On the same site the project « Un dessin pour la liberté », meaning a ‘drawing for freedom’, is asking children to send in drawings to show their support for the two hostages.

And initiatives like this are multiplying, on social networks in particular. The Twitter thread OnNeVousOubliePas meaning ‘you are not forgotten’ gives daily reminders of the two journalists’ situation, and counts the number of days they have spent in captivity.

Student Théo Calvet has created a work of art for the two journalists which he presents in this video. The photo of the two hostages is depicted in different ways with a different page for nearly every day they have been held. It is an original way to demand their liberation

Many web users are making the same appeal. Over 800 dancers organized a flashmob in Hazebrouck in France’s Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. As we see in this video the local dance club used a Michael Jackson song to express their solidarity with the two hostages.

PROTESTS IN TUNISIA

Several hundred protestors gathered in the town centre of Tunis on Monday demanding work and expressing their support to residents of Sidi Bouzid, in the central west of Tunisia.

As this amateur video shows, this region has been hit by violent protests ever since a young unemployed man tried to commit suicide on the 17th of December. The anger has spread across the country in recent days, reflecting people’s frustration over keeping up with high living costs.

Z, an artist who anonymously posts caricatures on his blog, slams the political censorship as national media talks about these events as an isolated incident. So, information and images concerning the various demonstrations are being circulated on the web, like this one organized by lawyers in Sidi Bouzid on Monday.

But the censorship has even spread to the Internet. This Facebook group questioning President Ben Ali on the country’s socio-political situation has been blocked. Over 11 000 web users have joined the group.

They are now playing a game of cat and mouse on the web and are being redirected to a new page set up to get round the censorship. The web page contains, in particular, an account from this Sidi Bouzid resident. In the video she denounces her son’s arrest following a violent police intervention at their home.

TWITTER ACCOUNT TURNS INTO TV SHOW

A mother’s Twitter messages are to be adapted for the television. Housewife Kelly Oxford has been blogging since 1997 and now has over 70 000 Twitter followers. IN view of this popularity, the actress Jessica Alba who has been a fan from the beginning has decided to produce a family sitcom called “Mother of all something” using the mini messages posted online by this Canadian mum. Other Twitter inspired adaptations are also being considered at the moment, notably Ashton Kutchers account, who is one of the most active members of the micro-blogging network.

GOOGLE BODY BROWSER

Google has launched Body Browser, an application that allows you to explore the human body in 3 dimensions. You can browse between muscles and organs and zoom right into the bone detail. An integrated search engine also helps you instantaneously find and visualize any part of the human body.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

German motocross champion Chris Pfeiffer and his fellow citizen Christoph Langen, a bobsleigh pilot; set themselves an utterly crazy challenge that you can see for yourself in this video that is currently circulating on sharing sites. These two thrill seekers decided to both ride their bob sleigh at the same time but in opposite directions, and try to pass each other in a bend at full speed. The project was particularly dangerous but successful and not something the two sportsmen are likely to forget in a hurry.